Capital: Luna City
Hive Language: none (English/U-speak)
Form of Government: Constellation
The smallest Hive is dedicated to the future. Many Utopians work on space exploration, running the Mars terraforming project, and having their capital on the Moon. Others focus on extending and protecting human life, doing medical research, or improving safety. Every time a Utopian dies, they work to find the cause, and keep working until they solve it—whether it means an hour repairing a broken safety rail or generations researching a disease—and so, as the narrator puts it, they “slowly, blade-by-blade, disarm Death.” Other Utopians are inventors, experimental researchers, or social scientists, while still others are artists, authors, or teachers, working to inspire people to aim for a better future, speculating about other ways the world might be, or making this world more beautiful. In a world of plenty, where most people only work 20 hours a week, all Utopians are required to dedicate themselves to work, giving most of their hours and most of their days to the future. This uniquely intense demand on members keeps the Hive very small, since some people love to put in 60+ hour weeks in the name of the future, but not many. Utopia has no official Hive language, but most Utopians speak a dense English slang called U-speak, packed with unconventional re-appropriations of fantastical and scientific vocabulary. Utopians organize themselves in overlapping webs of networks and teams called Constellations—so named because their shapes are deceptive when viewed from an outside, and what may seem to be a collection of ten dots might secretly include a cluster of a million stars that only seems to move as one. The Utopian flag shows the circles of the Earth (blue), Moon (white) and Mars (red) against the black of space, with small rockets launching outward toward the stars.
Utopia's distinctive garments are a cloak and visor made of griffincloth, showing the world on the other side as envisioned by that particular Utopian. These worlds vary from an in-depth simulation of 1 year in the future to more conceptual, such as Mushi Mojave's ants.
The oath Utopian's take, upon joining the hive demonstrates it's attitude and priorities well:
"I hereby renounce the right to complacency, and vow lifelong to take only what minimum of leisure is necessary to my productivity, viewing health, happiness, rest, and play as means, not ends, and that, while Utopia provides my needs, I will commit the full produce of my labors to our collective effort to redirect the path of human life away from death and toward the stars."
Known Utopians[]
- Aldrin Bester
- Apollo Mojave
- Huxley Mojave
- Mushi Mojave
- Voltaire Seldon